Board index › General Discussion › General Autism Discussion

AS/Autistic twins

Page 1 of 1 [ 5 posts ] 

Previous topic | Next topic

overflow
Blue Jay
Blue Jay

User avatar

Joined: 4 Jul 2006
Gender: Male
Posts: 81
Location: 0hi0

02 Sep 2006, 6:39 am

My brother and I are not twins (7 years apart), but share a lot of the same genetics. We look very much alike, he has many AS-like traits and most likely has AS as well, but is higher-functioning. We do have our differences though. I was lucky enough to get the baldness gene, for example.

Anyway, if AS/Autism is truly genetic, which I believe it mostly is, then it should be common for twins to share AS if that is part of their makeup. Fraternal twins would obviously vary widely, but identical twins should have the same genetics.

I am very curious about twins who have AS and were separated at birth and grew up in very different environments (geographically, socially, financially, family life, etc). Analyzing this information could rule out environmental factors being a cause, such as mercury, which I have been reading about. Of course this would not rule out everything and may not rule out anything at all, but it could be a starting point.

Thoughts?



fernando
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 616
Location: Mayan grounds

02 Sep 2006, 11:01 am

I only know about two non identical twins, one is AS, the other has the NT disease (poor guy, hehe). They did get separated since birth, but since they are not identical I guess they're not important.


_________________
"Whatever you do in life will be insignificant but it's very important that you do it because no one else will."


overflow
Blue Jay
Blue Jay

User avatar

Joined: 4 Jul 2006
Gender: Male
Posts: 81
Location: 0hi0

02 Sep 2006, 11:38 am

I found 2 threads:

Is it genetic?
Man-made Aspie

that make reference to identical twins having a greater chance of having it if one does. I wouldn't mind some links if anyone has a good source for the info.

Also, in the 2nd thread above, fernando provides some pretty compelling data for the genetic argument, which I am inclined to agree with. My father, two brothers, nephew and probably a few of my cousins have AS tendencies as well, but I don't know enough about my tree to make a nice list like his.



Tally
Toucan
Toucan

User avatar

Joined: 15 Dec 2004
Age: 43
Gender: Female
Posts: 276

02 Sep 2006, 1:27 pm

I found this:

Quote:
A limited number of twin studies show that genetic factors undoubtedly play an important role but are not fully explanatory. In monozygotic twins (“identical twins”), if one twin is diagnosed with autism, the other twin has a 70-90% chance of having a similar diagnosis (Steffenburg et al. 1989, Folstein and Rosen-Sheidley 2001).


You can read the full article here: http://www.protectingourhealth.org/news ... enbergetal



overflow
Blue Jay
Blue Jay

User avatar

Joined: 4 Jul 2006
Gender: Male
Posts: 81
Location: 0hi0

02 Sep 2006, 1:31 pm

Tally wrote:
I found this:


Thanks Tally. I need to run, but will definitely read it over.